NASA's second Mars Exploration Rover successfully sent signals
to Earth during its bouncy landing and after it came to rest on
one of the three side petals of its four-sided lander.

Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena,
Calif., received the first signal from Opportunity on the ground
at 9:05 p.m. Pacific Standard Time Saturday via the NASA Deep
Space Network, which was listening with antennas in California
and Australia.

"We're on Mars, everybody!" JPL's Rob Manning, manager for
development of the landing system, announced to the cheering
flight team.

NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said at a subsequent press
briefing, "This was a tremendous testament to how NASA, when
really focused on an objective, can put every ounce of effort,
energy, emotion and talent to an important task. This team is
the best in the world, no doubt about it."

Opportunity landed in a region called Meridiani Planum, halfway
around the planet from the Gusev Crater site where its twin
rover, Spirit, landed three weeks ago. Earlier today, mission
managers reported progress in understanding and dealing with
communications and computer problems on Spirit.

"In the last 48 hours, we've been on a roller coaster," said Dr.
Ed Weiler, NASA associate administrator for space science. "We
resurrected one rover and saw the birth of another."

JPL's Pete Theisinger, project manager for the rovers, said, "We
are two for two. Here we are tonight with Spirit on a path to
recovery and with Opportunity on Mars."

By initial estimates, Opportunity landed about 24 kilometers (15
miles) down range from the center of the target landing area.
That is well within an outcropping of a mineral called gray
hematite, which usually forms in the presence of water. "We're
going to have a good place to do science," said JPL's Richard
Cook, deputy project manager for the rovers.

Once it pushed itself upright by opening the petals of the
lander, Opportunity was expected to be facing east.

The main task for both rovers in coming months is to explore the
areas around their landing sites for evidence in rocks and soils
about whether those areas ever had environments that were watery
and possibly suitable for sustaining life.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's
Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Additional
information about the project is available from JPL at
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University,
Ithaca, N.Y., at http://athena.cornell.edu.